How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one's name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!

Sunday, September 11, 2011

A bad historian but a good medievalist

I have spent a little bit of time this morning pondering why I find all the 9/11 commemoration distasteful (for me, personally; I am not trying to tell anyone else that they are not entitled to commemorate, or remember, or grieve, in whatever way they find most helpful. Especially not those people who actually were in NYC or the Pentagon during the attacks - while I was smack in the middle of cornfields in the middle of the country. There was probably nowhere LESS likely to be subject to a terrorist attack than where I lived, so I cannot claim any insight at all into the experience, nor into what helps someone survive and process such an experience).

Maybe one mini-anecdoate is revealing: out in the middle of those cornfields, the local radio station started playing Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA almost non-stop, which absolutely INFURIATED me. Did they not understand the lyrics to the song? Did they not understand that the song is a CRITIQUE of the United States? At the very least, it is not a straightforward anthem of celebration. But that is how many around me seemed to understand it.

This was my experience of 9/11: a tragedy, and lots of genuine heroism, hijacked by a knee-jerk reversion to unthinking jingoism.

I know that is not what it means to a huge number of people, perhaps everyone else besides me. But because I didn't experience any of the events of 9/11 firsthand, the actual day is overshadowed by the things I dislike that came out of it, that I have experienced closer to firsthand: jingoism, Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, anti-Islamic sentiment, and security theater.

So I have to admit that I am not especially interested in today's commemorations. The good parts of such calls to memory - the reasons why they can be valuable - are not mine to claim or comment on; the bad parts of such calls to memory are not things I want to consider.

* * * * *

About being a bad historian: I also find no impulse whatsoever to archive anything surrounding this event. It seems forced, artificial; let what survives, survive. Let what doesn't, not. This, to me, puts events in their proper perspective. I feel no need to record things for future historians. They can play the hands they're dealt, surviving-sources-wise, as we historians all have.

But then, if I remain a historian at all, I am a medievalist. I studied things that happened 500-600 years ago. I remain very skeptical that a mere ten years has given us any perspective on this event at all. (I read a comment somewhere that the space devoted to 9/11 in textbooks has been shrinking. Maybe that's actually correct; maybe it doesn't deserve as much space as it had previously been given.) I would rather leave assessments to future, more distant viewers of this particular past.

8 Comments

We premodern historians share the same wariness when it comes to analyzing recent events. Perhaps it's just that my tool bag isn't set up this way, but I really don't think we'll have a good handle on this, either as an event or as a shift in American/world culture, for decades to come.

I, too, feel queasy about the commemoration. I was closer than you, and had students at the time that were directly affected, but still the response to the event left a bad taste in my mouth. And as I pointed out to Geeky Girl in the car, more people died in the ensuing (somewhat unnecessary) wars than in the attack itself, and we don't talk enough about those wars. GG wanted to know why we attacked a country when it was a terrorist group (without country) that attacked us. Indeed. A radio announcer called the attacks the greatest tradegy on American soil. Umm, what about Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg, the whole Civil War. And what about all the death from disease and car accidents and murder. Sigh. Yes, it gets my goat a little.

GG wanted to know why we attacked a country when it was a terrorist group (without country) that attacked us.

Yes! GG is wise. This is probably one of the things that most bothers me - the "War on Terror," which transforms the entire world into a battlefield, everyone into a potential combatant, and therefore justifies limitations of rights/extensions of executive power that I'm profoundly uncomfortable with. (I realize the response to this is that terrorists are a different breed of opponent, and of course that's correct, and my perspective may be naive. But I'm still very uncomfortable with this line of argument.)

I keep thinking of the St. Crispin's day speech in Shakespeare's Henry 5. But how many people remember October 25th? (Pretty much no one in Shakespeare's day, either.)

Heck, we've pretty much forgotten why the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month was important, and that's less than a century ago, and a whole lot more people died.

Of course, if you were close, then it's like any horrible thing you were close to. But for the many of us who weren't close, it would be better to focus on our responsibility (joint and mutual) for what we've done to the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan and other areas.

No, I agree with you. If all this remembrance felt necessary or genuine, perhaps I wouldn't mind, but it smacks of pathos and self-righteousness to me. I don't need Fox News to remind me of how horrible things were 10 years ago - and I certainly don't need continuous images of that horror filling the TV screens while I'm working out at the gym.

Should we remember? Of course, just as we should remember any such tragedy, but time will fade the blunt force trauma of 9/11, just as it has every horrific event. Like all of you, I wish we could concentrate on how our world has changed in ways that still need to be considered.

I spent all of today avoiding all forms of media. I've been dreading the anniversary for months now. I understand the point of honoring the dead and the heroes, but it was a terrible tragic time. I think G (who was about to turn four at the time) summed it up when I said I was trying to avoid it: "Why do people want to remember such a terrible thing?" Simplistic, yes. But for me, so the case.

What you say about Born in the USA reminds me of an email I recently received regarding a wedding, inviting the guests to memorize the chorus of a song (as a surprise to the bride and groom) and letting us know we wouldn't be singing the rest of the lyrics because they do not fit the occasion/couple.

What about finding one that fit, then? I yelled at the computer screen.

I also agree with the feelings behind the rest of your post, by the way.